tl;dr: Do you play QL frequently, but not #tdmpickup? Then please tell us why not, whatever the reason may be.

Not only has #tdmpickup always had the potential for having a larger number of active players, but it has come to my attention that #tdmpickup activity is dwindling considerably in recent times. This thread has two purposes:

1. To preemptively answer some questions players may have regarding #tdmpickup and promote it a bit:

#tdmpickup and its cousins #natdm.ql and #qlpickup.ru are IRC channels where a bot automatically (and very conveniently) organizes TDM matches. In #qlpickup.ru the bot even organizes matches for CTF and other gamemodes too.

Players simply need to join the channel, type !a, and they will be queued for the next TDM match. As soon as 8 players have typed !a to join the queue, the bot automatically assigns those players to a match, and the queue is reset to 0 until 8 more players type !a, and then another match starts, etc... Sounds easy right? Yeah, it is!

Each channel has a different bot, but they all follow the same principle. In addition to handling the queue, they also keep track of each player's individual performance. This allows the bot to create balanced teams, and it works surprisingly well, with very close matches happening frequently.

#tdmpickup has several dedicated servers available at all times, so there is always a server ready for the next match, even if there is more than one match on at the same time.

Of course, there is a bit more to #tdmpickup than just typing !a. There are advanced bot commands, the rating system, the map pool, the respect and etiquette, the friendships and rivalries, the occasional draft cups, the eternal 7/8s, the shamanic moments, the overtimes, the mercylimits, the lulz, blood, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids, especially when prozac types !a... But most importantly there are the guidelines to keep things running smoothly. They are built on foundations of common sense, so you will only need to read them once.

No problem! You don't need to install an IRC software client if you don't want to. Thanks to the underrated miracle that is IRC Webchat that opens IRC directly in your browser tab, #tdmpickup is quite literally two clicks away:

If it's your first time playing in #tdmpickup, you will need to tell the bot what your Steam ID is so it can track your match history properly. Make sure you are using the desired IRC nick and then type the following command:

!steamid <steamid>

Your Steam ID is the ~17 digit folder that can be found in C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Quake Live/ by default, and looks something like 76543210987654321. You can also use http://steamidfinder.com/.

Wrong! Players of all skill ranges and backgrounds play in #tdmpickup, from the likes of noctis, fearzzz and winz, right down to people who can barely strafe and shoot at the same time, like ins. Actually, noctis hasn't played in months. Whether it's through the bot's automatic rating system, or through captains manually picking teams, more often than not the teams are fairly balanced.

Yes, you may die a lot. Yes, you may cause your team to lose. Yes, you might not actually enjoy your first game that much... but trust me, you are more than welcome no matter how bad you think you are, and the best part of #tdmpickup, as with Quake itself, is the satisfaction of gradual self-improvement. With a different ping to get used to, new maps to learn, and all the different variables to consider over 20 minutes of non-stop action, it can be overwhelming at first, but give it time, and you will love it.

That's understandable, ping after all is the highest priority for some players, but if this is the main reason that is putting you off, please take a moment to check your ping on one of the new #tdmpickup servers, as your ping might have improved since the last time you checked:
/connect 45.32.154.37:27960; password tdm
/connect 45.32.154.37:27961; password tdm
/connect 188.166.164.211:27965; password tdm
/connect 188.166.164.211:27967; password tdm

Even if you have higher ping there than on your favourite CA server, please play a few games to get used to it and see how it goes. The sacrifice is worth it.

2. To find out the main reasons that are holding active QL players back from playing TDM pickups.

To be honest every reason will be of interest because it's reached a point where every single player counts, so please go ahead and tell us why you don't play pickups, or why you think other people don't.

Have played loads of tdmpickup and for the most part it is as fun as gaming gets.

Sadly it is very unfriendly for players with less experience. Majority of the more experienced players are very rude and take the game too seriously. It kills the fun when somebody continuously insults, team attacks or idles/disconnects when the game is far from over. And Im not even a total noob, know the basics of fropping weapons, supporting etc(had rating of about 20). Cant even imagine the feedback that total beginners get. Sometimes the raging takes place even while winning the other team, which to me is odd.

Some older players should really think more about giving advise to new players, not insulting and blaming them of ruining the day. There are of course nice players also: spartie, ash, otto to name a few.

People get flamed when they act like morons.
If it's your first time playing but you show up, nobody says a word.
The main issue with new players is that the cause massive delays and sometimes games don't happen at all, because people just don't show up.

If new players read the rules before adding for the first time, everything would be fine and friendly.

People get flamed for being bad also. Its always same 3-4 idiots doing that, so most regulars dont take offense, but i bet its not fun for new players. Youll see people insulting their mate who has total 5 tmd games in his life for not playing good on a map he sees for the first time in his life. Youll see retards team killing repeatedly because someone stole "their" quad- Hell youll see people quitting at 15 min mark cos they are not satisfied with the score (one guy is notorious for this) and noone gets banned, ever

Yup, just like meph1sto stated: players get shat on for not being familiar with the game.
TDM and quake in general requires huge amount of experience and knowledge even to get at an average skill level. This seems to be difficult for old players to comprehend as the basics require no thinking on their behalf: basics have become automatic behaviour after years and years of playing.

The greatest problem of quake as a game in general is its complexity.

And the greatest problem of tdmpickup is the handful of angry, egoistic and rude players. A more positive attitude would certainly increase the playerbase.

I think it happens in all games. I joined one of their servers ages ago but didn't realise I had to register and at the time didn't have mirc setup so never bothered but I will play once I sort out my pc again. I think tdm is really great. I miss the days before steam when quite a few tdm public servers were busy...

However my first impressions when I joined a tdmpickup server were good. Someone kindly told me to register (glad it's easier now as I am a casual player of quake these days) and everyone seemed friendly.

Sometimes if people take it too seriously then try to reason with them as close games are more fun...however on the flipside..

One thing quake 2 taught me is if you get to play against a difficult team on a public server just try your best and learn new skills. This will improve your individual game quicker than being on a strong team railing headless chickens running about :)

#tdmpickup is great, but I pretty much stopped playing after the whole steam only thing.

I did try to comeback at the start of the year, but it kind of felt that things have gone down the hill alot.

Constant and I mean constant server issues. Listed servers "the servers that the bot suggests" are never played in, since they fucking suck. So servers are changed pretty much after every game comes together. Server chances lead to players not showing up which leads to re-adding and so on.
There are usually no admins around, so people can not show up or ragequit as much as they want and the server issues never get solved ...

No, that will not help.
Glicko itself is flawed, there is a rng element which leads to performance not mattering at all when it comes to rating changes, which leads to at lot of situations where teams are very uneven.

Well it should, but again it doesn't, quite often at least.
If player 1 and player 2 are compared to whoever it is player1 who should gain more in whatever situation and player 2 should always lose more no matter what as player 2 performance in the game was significantly worse.

I don't think so. If the average server skill is closer to Player 2's skill, they will be considered to have had a better performance than Player 1 who is considered to be playing with lesser skilled opponents, and therefore is rewarded less. nawmeen.

I said that player 1 and player 2 have the same rating, they have the exact same position compared to the server average.
Player 1 is the best player on the server, player 2 is the worst.
Player 1 gets punished for performing well, player 2 is rewarded for under performing.

I get that, but my teammates should be compared to our opponents as well so the premise still remains.

Players with the same rating get compared to the other team. One is positive in every aspect, the other has -20 net and negative damage hence the latter one performed poorly compared to the first one, but he seemingly gets rewarded for that.

- it's easier to learn maps in TDM than in any other mode. You just spawn and try to survive from resources around you if you're not 100% sure where to go. Survive/+b on your own; Fight with your team, there's wh-arrows etc...

- Ideally in pickup the goal is to assist in winning. So steal items, hurt opponents (even if you can't kill them, even with MG), survive too.

- Binds: Not really necessary, seems like no one is listening usually anyway. Turn off the chat beep. But try to listen to the others' binds - can be helpful. Also there's voice in game now.

Got rated pretty high (20+)
Was fun, however you get the odd few and more so than other, bunch of cunts who think they're the shit at tdm and decide to hog everything map-wise, made the game less fun when they chose to not drop weapons etc.

tl;dr

Duel > TDM because if you lose it's your fault, if you lose in TDM it's never the "top players" fault.

I dont play pickup TDM. I stopped playing pickups in q3 whatsoever when the scene was dwindling already and there were quite some assholes ons ervers who either spoiled the game or blamed everyone but themselves. There *were* some cool servers and cool TDM crews, but I simply dropped it as I moved away from quaking and that was that.

Never played a single pickup in QL. Both TDM and CTF-wise. Maybe its because I loved the noobery that goes on pubs along with all the bullshido tossed around. Maybe it was because I palyed eough clans and all that shit in 90s and 00s and just wanted to go full casual. Friends, when asked, told me that it went down considerably during last years. As the playerbase shrank so did pickups. People dont have time, inclination, connection, etc etc. Back in the day pickups were cool because it was more or less a tight crew of people who knew and depended on each other. Now - and I only quote people who did pickups in QL - its more or less primadonna bullshit, egoism and wild skill discrepancies along with extremely hostile attitude. I havent even touched the shitty server/lag/whatever issues. Fun games still happen, but theyre few and far between.

Wrong. Most games are even throughout the whole 20 mins and end with <10 frag difference. What more do you need to have fun? Sure, there is some elitism and primadonas involved, but overall games are fun. The only problem is the attitude few idiots have towards new players as the cummunity is really small and shouldn't get new players discouraged.

So far it seems it not only should, but it does.
I wish entire TDM scene all the best, yet the fact remains - the numbers are small and will continue to drop. There's probably only so much TDMrs can do (advertise games, planned pickups) and hope to get more people in. Will it work? Hmm....

When I've played I can't seem to wrap my head around that it's not FFA and that dying actually matters.
It's some weird middleground between FFA and Duel when it comes to dying that I can't grasp.
If I +back I'm not helping my team so they are dying, if I try to do something useful I die from stupid shit 9 times out of 10.
Also, when some good player in my team like Ash or Cooller jumps by I give them my weapon because I feel like they will do more good with it than I. Same thing with power-ups, it's always "eh this good player seems eager to have Quad, I'll let him have it". So most of the time I'm running around with MG, giving away weapons and dying.
But I will try again!

there already about 20 maps played in duel, which is the mode I prefer and that is plenty of learning already. On top of that, I like ffa and there is some map learning there too. My brain is full of useless knowledge (maps) that has no application elsewhere outside quake.

also the luck of completion and the small player base

probably nothing constructive above, but these are honestly the reasons why I don’t play

edit: in duel even though if u want to play properly, u must know more than 10 maps, u can get by even by just 1. If u like ztn, dm6 or aero, you will find plenty of duels to play in any of them. There is even that hektik guy (probably must be hard for him) and there are few toxic, sinister and dm13 guys (probably hard for them too).

in ca u don’t really need to know any maps

in ffa u can get by, by learning very few

in ctf u need to learn some, but are very few and easy to learn (symmetric)

I don't care one bit what you will do. You can learn the map in 15 minutes and play it 3 times to know all that is required for a pickup. If it takes 3 days instead of 1, you'll be ready to play in 15 days.

I can only say what made me stop with quake completely: shitty community servers. At least id software ran servers where i had constant ping whole day. These community servers are 30 ms for the first hour, 50 ms for the 2nd hour and 70+ for the 3rd hour, then repeat. It's a shitty experience.

1°) I'm very shit at TDM
2°) I don't know the maps even tho I saw a lot of streamed games already
3°) Out of all the quake gametypes, TDM is the one I played the less, I have like what ? 50 TDM games since I started quake in 2002 :D
4°) I'm more into CA or even duel. If I have to practice a "serious" gametype really hard I would rather play duel because you don't need team m8s and there's more competition in duel and for me quake is 1st a game suited for duel. However I understand the huge ammount of skill needed to be good at TDM, and I have huge respect for noctis, latrommi, winz and l1nkin to only name a few.
5°) If there were more tournaments/major events for TDM I would probably play it at least just for fun, but actually it's not the case sadly, appart from HoQ league, TDM is a very elitist gametype, not worth the time investing in it to be good, at least for me :)
6°) I'm shit at TDM, but like, real shit, and cba learning a whole new meta game etc :)

I only duel because I've always liked single-person activities. Just like with sport: I've skateboarded, snowboarded, rock climbed, etc, and never got into team sports. Guess I just like to rely on, and blame myself for my wins and losses. But I'm happy that stuff like tdmpickup is around and not entirely dead for QL - we need every bit of momentum we can get!

have pld competitive pool (9ball, 8ball). I am also playing chess, doing rock climbing and surfing for fun. Even when I was in school, I was doing 100 meters and long jump and wasn't involved that much in team games.

I recently started playing and I don't regret, but the same reasons I didn't play previously are holding me back to be more active. It's mainly my old machine and ancient LCD which contribute to image stuttering/tearing, FPS drops that make it difficult on the eyes. Not a big deal for some casual CA environment, but to track the movement of more decent players, upkeep accuracy and speed, my machine is dead weight on my abilities to improve and to be more consistent. It can be difficult to concentrate with a sluggish screen in front of you, it's a penalty I can't really play without and it often demotivates me.

But whatever, I still see no harm having a game or two once in a while.

well no wonder there's lack of players. I join the chat and not even the second after I'm kicked. Try to rejoin, I'm banned. Great. Haven't played pickup in years and wasn't on channel long enough to say a word. gg

why i dont play tdm?CAUSE IT FUCKIGN SUCKS LIKE THE WHOLE FUCKING GAME!SOO FUNNY IN DUEL you WIN SOMETIMES TO ELO 2200 AND THEN OTHER DAY LOSE TO 1500 elo! The Game is just bullshit.Full of luckers!Why i am not lucky???FUCKIGN AIMBOTS !!!

It seems that the channel matchmaking bot is broken now, has been for like a week. The admins don't give a fuck, I doubt they even know, because no admins are around anyway. Due to the latter the games that do happen are often dreadful, because non of the noshows and ragequitters don't get banned.

There is so much wrong with your post. I'm not an admin or even a player in #tdmpickup since I play #NATDM.QL but I spectate and stream a ton of #tdmpickup games. I'm familiar enough with the community and what is going on....

Bot is broken? Admins don't know because there aren't any?
Bot isn't broken, you need to captain. Big different. The bot was pulling information from a database that was being ran by WDX2. WDX2 was one of the people to help link all that lovely qlstats.net information. A bot that doesn't force you to captain only works when it has history and data to pull from after all. WDX2 had mentioned some real life stress, but nothing to the extent that caused his disappearance well over a month or two ago. You're that mad because you thought it was only a week? Geez -_-

Anyway ... the databases for both NA and EU region are now not available unless someone else sets them up. The Admins that are left know about it. The admins that are left and the players that are left need to create the same set up that we had if they want it so bad. Its not like you're paying for this shit ..... As far as players not getting banned you should take it from NA. Eventually the EU #tdmpickup community will become smaller overtime and when that starts happening you can only ban so many players. However, I totally feel you on the way that some people are allowed to get away with things that should and used to warrant a ban.

anyway ... just had to point out that if you want the match making back then fix it yourself. Getting shit done in Quake Live usually means relying on yourself. So Just Do it! =)

So here is a brief summary of what has been going on lately. There is alot of debate about the #tdmpickup channel and more precisely about the primary bot being down.

As you all know, we had to program a new bot with the steam update which needed to be compatible with steam and the whole rating system.
Wdx worked on it and got it done. We had it running for several months with no problems and it was doing just fine.

However, as you've all noticed it recently went down. To cut the story "very" short and, as crazy as this may sound, the reason to all this is a crash of the dedicated server that it was running on alongside with Wdx having to leave for personal matters (so he is not around to fix it until end of may).

In the meantime, we are working on getting another bot back up. It will either work with qlstats or perhaps a system using the balance mode provided by minqlx. If that prooves to work fine we'll stick with it and see what happens when the main bot is back.
We are currently testing minqlx on one of the pickup servers and we'll give the !balance system a shot. We have added our servers on qlstats so that our games can provide a ratings system compatible with the minqlx script.
There is also a debate about discord but that is still too early to switch to imo.

I'd like to add that we "admins" are in our 30s, have jobs, families and kids.. We only do this for the passion that we have for this game and the will to keep it alive. Unfortunetly our time is limited and we may often appear to be afk because of life priorities.

We'll still try to do our best to get things back to normal ASAP.
In the meantime, please be patient and do your best to play with the current bot which requires 2 caps and a "manual" process to make teams. The tdmpickup servers will remain up and free to use.
Remain positive and try not to ruin games by refusing to cap, etc. The rules are still the same and they are here to make sure everyone has a good time.
It's definitely less conveniant but at least it allows us to keep playing until we get things sorted.

Our servers are now tracked on QLSTATS.
We have added Minqlx on 2 of our servers as a test: 45.32.154.37:27960 and 45.32.154.37:27961

After you have all played a few games on the pickup servers (2-3 games) you will all have updated stats/elo.

You can then all join random teams and use !balance which will create 2 teams based on equal elo total (the same way the rating system worked using rating).

So here is how we should work from now on:
0) Play a couple of games normally using caps until you are all rated.
1) !add on IRC
2) Once 8 players are reached, all join one of the 2 servers stated above.
3) All join any random team blue/red regardless.
4) hit !balance and let the bot do the job and set you all on the right teams

If u use a server bot to shuffle why dont u go public and just ban a player for 24 hrs if he isnt in the server when the map ends? You can automate most tasks like handing out infos and say the guy who has the map pick

the point of pickup games isn't to be elitist pricks who don't want to let the public play. It's to make sure that no one is joining and leaving in the middle of the game. There are other minor benefits to pickup games, but that's the reason why.

I will also add what follows: i'm not advocating for leaving the old tdmpickup channel behind, the two things can coexist.
Since we are in a thread about reaching more players and many brought up accessibility as an issue, imagine how many people dont know esr, dont know irc or the chan tdmpickup. Well, all of them know the serverlist on ql. Having ppl play tdm in public is the only real way to make them steps closer to play on #tdmpickup and join/play on a more exclusive community both skillwise and for accessibility. Of course same games will be trash and it will take time for the rating system to adapt (exp if starting rating is 1500) but popoularity comes with a price and again the thread is called "why dont u play tdmpickup".
It could even be done that ppl in spec can !a so there will be a queue.
If the thing really flies (for quake standards) you could even have a couple of servers with skill limits, with time. If it doesnt take off it was probably meant to be that tdm is a niche mode.

Sounds good. But IRC remains a hookup point and can be conveniant since it allows you to add then do something else with your pc until game starts for instance..
Also to arrange games, etc. But we could ultimately switch to discord.

Usually (in North America) the random players show up after a game has already popped and we're sorting teams/maps for the upcoming pickup. When these same people will stick around after being asked/moved to spec and then complain they can't get in the next game it's really hard to feel bad for them lol. I'm not sure how it goes in Europe, but from what I've seen most of the time people aren't sitting around in the servers waiting for 8 of 8 players. Similar to NA you all seem to only join or be on the server(s) when games are popping.

I too wish that we could all just hit up a public TDM server and wait for players. We did all the time back in UT and I'm sure it happened in the earlier years of Quake. However we all know that the only way to get games going these days is through pickup games, and the people who want to join a pickup match and then complain that they have to add up will never be happy because they are simply illogical people. It doesn't really matter if the pickup games are organized on a website like TF2 or in IRC like QL. There is no salvation for these people.

tdmpickup is dead cause im getting banned from the channel. if i was let loose off the chain and stream with 10,000 viewers (which you know i'd easily get), tdm would be bigger than ever, same with ctf...

Update 2: !balance only works for admins to force the balance of a team.

You need to use the classic /callvote shuffle which will shuffle teams using the !elos

Anyone can check balance by typing !teams
It will tell you if teams are fair. Give it a try

You can see people elo's (qlstats) by typing !elos in console.

There are 5 permission levels (basically 5 admin levels).
!balance is available for level 1 permission (tiny admins)
A few trustees will have permission 1 which includes some basic admin commands like forcing a vote, forcing !balance , forcing !shuffle.

CA is actually an okay mod and I used to like watching people who were good at it, even though Im not really a fan of cpm/promode and fast switch.

Whats known as "CA" in ql is actually just a Halo version of quake (max health, ammo, all weapons, no self damage). Funny how they fucked the game with loadouts and other crap while they had their noob mod just sitting there all along.

i remember buying a premium just for the pickups. i played it for 2 or 3 months. the lack of comms, the learning curve for spawns, the constant timing, the whining and drama, and especially the lack of weapons...just spawning with the mg and getting killed cause the enemy controls the weapons. the whole thing is just too hardcore, and its impossible to make it popular.

also irc is pretty much outdated technology. theres a working pickup bot on the reflex ctf pickup as well.

LoL community is indeed the most retarded I've seen. Quake Live is peaceful in comparison. I don't think the community has anything to do with the current state of the game. I really wouldn't mind a couple sensitive shits whining on the forum about it. The reality is, any player that isn't labeled as some sort of casual that is baited on every shit tittle that comes out there by every large money grabbing company isn't going to mind a couple of loudmouth retards on the server and enjoy the game anyway, new or experienced. And these sensitive shits, including the old "q3 dinosaurs" and whatnot don't have the passion to play the game anymore. Like everyone was so kumbaya years ago, as far as I remember, back in 2003 when I started playing UT99 and every game online from that point on, there have been retard loudmouths everywhere. So, when I see these sensitive shits with this attitude that the whole problem with the game is that it is not so kumbaya, I want to stomp a fat, shit covered boot in their face how dumb that is.

pickups are all 2200+ elo. plus, old 4dmg MG rules and 45 sec weapon respawn, why would i want to subject myself (and those who play in my team) with a massive humiliation, when i know i'm not good enough.

Im pretty sure the average rating for any given pickup these days is 1500. Of the 20 most active players I'd say half of them are in the 1100-1200 range. They don't care about getting "humilliated". They just play some muthafuckin quake.

classic TDM is too hard for most, more so if you don't have the TDM mentality. maybe some neo-TDM servers for people to pub on would open up people's mind to the concept, but right now it's all duel and CA.

I could tollerate bm, flaming and mental breakdowns (people quitting tdm for that need to grow thicker skin) but there's no way i can put up with the pace at which games are organized.

TDMers are just slow at readying up, slow at fixing teams if 2 guys need to swap, slow at rolling their fkn joints (which they HAVE to do in between games). Slow is the keyword. And there's not enough people to get 2 cycles going so you have to wait an absurd amount of time if you wanna play 2 in a row. Oh and the classic russian going 999 once a match with no sub available.

I even learned something as pathetic, unsatisfying and boring like item timing to get better (out of all the fkn game mechanics you could implement in that mod), but its not worth it, poor quality time.

Admins are scared that this will drive players away when it is quite the opposite, the current situation drives players away. I've seen 4-5 people leave the channel at the same time because admins refuse to ban some fucking random who didn't join the server on time.

Well not banning people is driving other players away.
For example ... if there are 60 active players and you ban two of them for constantly ruining games for all other players, for months even years the exact same people do the exact same shit, you still have 58 players left, but if you do not ban those two 10 or 20 people stop playing and you have 40 active players left including the 2 who ruin games for all other participants.

I agree with this, it's retarded as fuck at the moment. And they are the same couple of people who delay it every fucking game. It used to be so that out of ctfpickup and tdmpickup the latter would gather and start games faster and that was probably because the admins were much more strict and trigger happy and there were always subs around.

Yo guys, SkillZ here, this is just making me sad, but glad you bring this up.

I agree that the operators/admins needs to be much more strict, otherwise we have the problem as MailmanMel describes perfectly fine and understandable, which also shows (i'm sorry) how afraid the active admins at the time seems to be of banning certain people, even though they are ruining it for all else, in other words;

It's like showing the ones who ruin the game that this is an OK behaviour, which in my eyes, IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT, i would even ban myself if i did something wrong, that would make 7 other people suffer from something i might have done, i am sorry but i have guilt feelings for others, that's how strict it should be.

But i guess people needs to roll their fucking joints and smoke it exactly before the game starts or midgame or whatever, which is just sad for us who really care to play and not let 7 other people suffer because this 'random' guy who is medium skilled in tdm needs to take a phone call and don't give a shit about others time and contribution to the tdm scene.

I mean, they should be glad people even stay around, because without all the other players who never cause problems, we wouldn't get to play in the first place... it's thanks to those guys it is even active and what one should achieve to satisfy, the good ones, the humble ones, the helpful ones.

i mean kaman mane, the situation as of now is just like laughable, and no, i will not stfu, i will always share my opinion, even if you are my dear friend in quake, i will either tell you compliments, be kind or tell you to stfu or whatever the f*ck is my perception of reality at the time.

I know it's not easy for the admins to make it all work etc, i know, because i have had perms on 10+ servers in the ql-scene for the past 6 months and sometimes you just gotta be the 'douche' that goes against the mainstream admins.

What i reffer to is those admins who doesn't do anything at all about the things that obviously needs attention for the moment, listen to the people who makes the community, because all of us togheter is what makes it to what it is.

So why not make it fun and enjoyable as much as we can and set aside your bad mood, bad habits, ignorance etc and tell a joke or whatever to lighten up the mood, be there for each other, don't go dropping bombs where you play daily and shove that pissy attitude somewhere else, fuck people having too much 'pride' to be a good guy if they cannot even show respect to one another. Because the math in that case isn't adding up.

And don't show the ones who ruin it any kind of personal emotions, just because they might be an old friend or a good player, because that's not how administration works. If you don't respect the others you play with daily, you don't even belong in the community.

Over and out, sorry for making you read a book if you managed to read through it all.

Hi there. Nice post. I will throw my feedback to what I like and dislike about this community of #tdmpickup @ quakenet. The following feedback is based on mainly the gamemode 4v4 TDM, the players playing it and the admins within this community... :

I been around for about 2 months so far and been playing a lot almost daily. I improved a lot from being a complete noob to just an average player. Theres some really skilled players in this community who obviously have years of experience.

Most of these elite players are polite and humble guys which is great - they show a good example of how to be in a small gaming community.

The positive:
There has been some few really nice people welcoming me and helping me to stay around and keep playing (you know who you are!). I tried to do the same thing to other new players who are even newer than me. Teach them the basics on teamspeak such as how many seconds for RA,YA,weapons,Quad,BS, how to prepare for engaging the Quad/BS by using team hud to check teammates health/armor.

The negative:
There are some elite players who can be super arrogant who lack any sense of impulse control. They act as if they are kings in a lawless land where they can abuse the set of rules that are rarely enforced by the admins (more on that later).
Time (no respect for other peoples time) - As other has mentioned already people join late or ready up late. Especially bad if its map picker who joins in 10th or 11th minutte starts to complain about map or demand strategy (positions on map) before ready'ing up. I see this all the time. It's typically the same few persons violating this over and over.
Timeout (abusing of the function). - This one is a bit redundant to the "time" above, but the timeout function is used a lot because players wanna answer telephone calls in the midst of a game. They will have 7 people waiting for a full timeout instead of either just ignoring the phone call and call after game - or - do a short timeout and say they will call back in 20 mins. It's typically the same few persons violating this over and over.

Insulting/Trolling
This happens mostly in the midst of the game. Because the higher rated player have no impulse control and feels a need to do a really mean insult or teamkill just to teach the lower skilled player a lesson. Again this happens a lot because of no impulse control. They wouldn't take few minuttes after the game when they are calm and sober to talk about it (give constructive feedback), but happily ruin a whole game in the middle of it. It's typically the same few persons violating this over and over.

Lower skilled player takes Red Armor or Quad or Battlesuit
This makes some higher elo players go completely nuts in the moment. This can aggravate the "elite player" to engage in all the previous listed ways of abusing. Ie. call "timeout", do "frag teammate" , "insult wildly" etc.

This is a controversial one I know. And I do try to allow the better players to have most of the RA and BS and Quads. Especially if they have same HP+Armor or more than me.
I'm a teamplayer and not an egoist.
But in the heat of the moment , I can like everyone else make a mistake. So because I or anyone else with lower elo gets a single RA or Quad or BS instead of a higher ELO player in one match, they should be humiliated, mocked and personally attacked and insulted ingame + even after game at IRC? I think not.It's typically the same few persons violating this over and over.

Admins are scared of engaging with high ranked "status" players. They rather have a new player get deeply offended and shit on and risk losing this new player instead of looking into the issue. I have numerous times presented evidence (video recorded demos with software as Open Broadcaster Service) and uploaded the "evidence" to youtube and given the timecodes for the exact violations as well as the full game in video (for context if the admins want).
I get that an admin who have served the community well for many years feels he have done his job and no longer need to spend more time on it. Well how about stepping down then? No shame in calling it quits after so long time. I am sure someone else would be up for the task. It is incredibly discouraging for me as a new player
as me see the same players violate basic rules over and over without any consequence.
When I give the admins on a silver platter to the admins, most of them ignore me and one of them even repeatingly rejects me with calling me out as "snitch" or "leave me alone". Great job admin. You get a new member whos very active, never shows up late, ragequits and try to be nice and friendly to all. And this is how you treat the new member? Step down man. You may have been a good admin in the past but you are not so anymore.
By allowing the same guys violate over and over again, you indirectly support a very toxic and hostile community.

I always disliked the fact that I lose too much time between games. Sometimes I need to wait 20+ mins to play another game. Also adding, joining server, etc. makes too much effort to just play 1 map.

I would consider playing it more if the pickup games are at least BO3 so when the teams are assembled I can spent some more time on the server enjoying the game without concerns of being out of next map.

Can't we have the pickup bot make teams (cv shuffle) on the server after the map is picked so it takes the ratings for that specific map into account? I feel the teams would be much more equal if the map was taken into account. There is already some function built into the server bot that makes teams based on the qlstats ratings but AFAIK the tdmpickup algorithm is different.

100 times this. shuffle should work in a way that 2 "captains" (players with highest ratings) get asigned to different teams, then shuffle others so that you get smallest average elo difference. number 1 picks in pickup have almost double the impact of number 4 picks

- when rules were enforced to makes pickups more welcoming to newcomers and happen as fast/as often as possible (that thread was from the time when we played 50-60 pickups a day), people protested and I was the bad guy

- when that crew died out and now no one is banning anyone (according to lo2dk, MailmanMel and even rehepapp above), people protest and ask for admins to step down

You have 4? servers, and 4 of them are empty most the time. You are using an ingame bot for the teams. Just setup a couple of servers for public use for a while. autoban leavers. Autoshuffle at start. Find some ways to improve the eventual buse of the system. For the irc pickups, if they dont start for a while, suck it up for a month or two and try to make it more accessible.

[00:10] <huehuehuehue_> NEW_KHAN any interesting dreams to report
[00:10] * huehuehuehue_ scribbles in a notebook
[00:11] <NEW_KHAN> i dreamt i was a girl who wanted a penis and slept with my mother
[00:12] <huehuehuehue_> Dr. Hue recommends taking a vacation
[00:12] <huehuehuehue_> somewhere far away
[00:13] <huehuehuehue_> iceland perhaps
[00:13] == noobakillah [webchat@host-81-190-155-56.olsztyn.mm.pl] has joined #tdmpickup
[00:13] <huehuehuehue_> noobakillah any interesting dreams to report
[00:15] <dehumanizer> huehuehuehue
[00:15] <dehumanizer> today i had a dream
[00:15] <dehumanizer> i found lonely cat, i took him home, take care, gave him something to eat
[00:15] <dehumanizer> milk and stuff
[00:16] <dehumanizer> he was cute, but mom looked at me like on a idiot and told to get rid of it
[00:16] <dehumanizer> i was like crying i didn';t want to
[00:16] <dehumanizer> but in the end i realised, that cat looks like bread
[00:16] <dehumanizer> and it was bread for all the time
[00:17] <dehumanizer> like wtf why cant i dream about hot milfs or something

I've never played TDM pickups apart from a handful of times I subbed in cpm ones, but I've played quite a number of bomb and CTF pickups in warsow, and I found CTF to be unsuitable for pickups. If you don't have coms, it's impossible to play this mode in a reasonable manner. Team composition and your role changing with every match isn't fun either. If I truly wanted to put in time to play it, I would want it in a fixed team, against other fixed teams, with practice sessions and mumble. I imagine something similar is true for TDM.

Play a less serious and more random, maybe round-based gamemode (so you can shittalk and be social inbetween, and watch the sometimes hilarity ensuing from a gameplay perspective). It should also be inconsequential in the sense that you don't get raped for X rounds/minutes if you lose the round or control. You shouldn't be denied fun because a randomly made up team happened to do badly against some other randomly made up team. Warsow bomb doesn't have an economy like CS does, you don't have to do Eco rounds. Everybody starts with the same stuff every round. It's better that way.
I thought Attack and Defend was always fun in Quake. It also embodies those principles. I would prefer it over TDM.

Maps that are not in the main pool can only be used if all players agree.

This is the main reason I stopped playing @ tdmpickup. No fkn way to play some cpm4 or ospdm5 from time to time. All I can hear is "no way, old maps, you moron" then they vote Hidden Fortress 24/7 ;F. Great job tdmpickup!

edit: it was some time ago so if something has changed please prove me wrong and I will gladly jump back in.

Im in pain guys pain... you all know how fucking muscular i was.. that time is over.. stopped hitting weights in the gym for 3 months now ... my advice for you stop heavy lifting cuz 1 day it will fuck you up no matter how strong you are no matter if you use proper form.. the human body is a fucking joke its weak as fuck... i got bursitis in both of my shoulders.. if any guy got some experience with this contact me @ m_arlonn@hotmail.com

When qc is coming out i will be back.. but i need to recover first
I wont join quake without my massive body
Im used to me 50kg mouse arm cant handle it anymore my arm is so light when i want to aim from left to right my arm is fucking flying like its noting bro

Its prohan baby

Pz and love for the quake community

Im sorry for all the things i have done and said and treath... karma came to me and fucked me in both of my shoulders
Cant even fucking steer my bmw without pain

Find a good physical therapist and a coach/trainer who does olympic lifting (it's more a sport than pure power, requires finesse and flexibility and is more well-rounded. plus its coaches/trainers are more professional). Unfortunately you're in Holland... my Dutch roommate had a crazy problem with heel spurs and explained "doctors here just make you suffer for a while before doing anything", cause the philosophy in dutch medicine is to make you not die, which is just good enough, not to make you 100% healthy or comfortable which is "not natural".

I remember playing you on thunderstruck a ton of times a while back... we didn't get along because you have a pointlessly retarded ego, but that's my advice.

Should've tucked your elbows and arched your back while benching. Too bad you turned it into a mindless ego-lift.

Also, if you're on gear, might aswell run some deca or half year of GH to fix your tendons/joints. Stay away from winny. Actually, stay away from extreme DHT/estrogen supressing compounds, if you want to run these, run some test-e with it atleast and keep your levels balanced.

It's fun to play, don't have to know IRC, just go to http://tdmpickup.eu/ enter username, and register steam ID and then add to the game, if unsure about anything just ask in the chat, would make a huge difference just to have a few more players that join to playing TDM once in a while, most players are really friendly.